“Professor Kym Anderson of Wine2030 and the Wine Economics Research Centre gave a fascinating and informative presentation at the plenary session of the Crush 2011: The Grape and Wine Science Symposium in Adelaide, entitled ‘Wine’s globalization: New opportunities, new challenges for Australia’.

The Crush 2011 symposium, organised by the Wine Innovation Cluster, brought together top wine and grape researchers from all over Australia and overseas, from universities, research institutes, industry and government to present the latest cutting edge research, to network and to foster future collaborative opportunities. The University of Adelaide had a strong attendance, as did the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the University of South Australia, Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC), South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), and other universities and institutions around Australia and overseas. Inspiring talks were provided in the plenary session at the National Wine Centre by GWRDC Chairman Rory McEwen, Kym Anderson, John Brooks of Zork, Mark Thomas of CSIRO Plant Industry, Keren Bindon of AWRI and Rebekah Richardson of Pernod-Ricard Pacific…”

“The 4^th Annual Postgraduate Symposium occurs next Wednesday and Thursday (October 5-6).   The School of Agriculture, Food and Wine expects all students (and supervisors) to attend where possible as this represents one of the many training opportunities the School provides for our Postgraduates.

The program is filled with many interesting topics and offers a unique opportunity for all mid-candidature students to explain their work and for the entire School to hear about the broad range of ground-breaking research going on here at the moment.

The venue this year will be the ‘Charles Hawker Centre Auditorium’ and both morning/afternoon teas and lunch will be provided by various sponsors.

The program starts both mornings at 9am and finishes at 5pm. There will be sponsored prizes and a social event immediately following the Symposium on Thursday 6^th October.

For further information about the Timetable go to:  2011 Postgraduate Symposium…”

“A new Economic Issues paper – Assisting Regions and Communities to Cope with Structural Change: Context, Objectives, Principles and Good Practice – was recently distributed to Corporate Members.

This paper is the final of three papers on regional issues with earlier papers exploring first, Re-Thinking the Approach to Regional Development in South Australia (EIP No. 28) and second, the “rejuventation” of the Provincial Cities following a protracted period of decline through the 1990s (EIP No. 29).

In this paper, Emeritus Professor Cliff Walsh and Associate Professor Michael O’Neil consider structural change and the adjustment pressures that regions experience. The principal purpose of the paper is to develop:

• an overarching framework within which structural adjustment issues can be appropriately considered;
• a statement of general principles of guiding whether, when and how it is appropriate for government to assist regions to cope with structural adjustment pressures, whatever their source; and
• a set of good-practice principles to appropriately shape the practical design and implementation of regional structural adjustment assistance where it is offered…”

“The Wine Science and Business Group of the University of Adelaide is producing an English/Chinese (Mandarin) dictionary with a particular emphasis on wine. This project is being led by Dr Sue Bastian and the project team is keen to use this opportunity to consolidate Australia’s position in the Chinese wine market.

The following link will take you directly to the survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MSTYFMJ

We would really appreciate you, or someone in your company, taking the time to complete the survey, which should take about 15 minutes. The data from the survey will ensure that we meet the needs of the industry in a market that offers enormous potential to Australian wine producers.

If you have any questions about the survey, please do not hesitate to contact the Project Manager, Trent Johnson (trent.johnson@adelaide.edu.au or 0413 193 330), School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, the University of Adelaide.

We look forward to a positive response from industry and would like to thank those who have already provided their responses…”

“Dr Melissa de Zwart, Associate Professor in the University of Adelaide’s Law School is researching the highly topical and contentious, even emotive subject – both globally and locally – of Geographical Indications (GIs). Working in the wine arena, I am familiar with the GIs as set by Wine Australia, and I expect most wine aficionados to have noticed that we no longer use terms such as port, sherry, burgundy, or champagne to describe our wines, since they are regional names in Europe. Melissa looks at the legal process leading to these changes and the wider issues surrounding the possibility of extending this system to foodstuffs and beyond, and where each global player stands on the subject, with poignant examples taken from the South Australian experience. The answers are not straightforward as you will see!

The full discussion will be released as a chapter entitled: ‘Geographical Indications: Europe’s strange chimera or developing countries’ champion?’ in the book entitled Law of Reputation and Brands in the Asia-Pacific Region (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). The book looks at what makes the Asia-Pacific region distinctive in its response to issues arising from branding and the use of signs in marketing, contributed to mostly by lawyers and economists…”

“The Centre’s Executive Director, Assoc Professor Michael O’Neil, presented this paper to the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program (LLNP) National Provider Forum, Melbourne (8-9 June).

Given the findings of the ABS/OECD international survey on language, literacy and numeracy – in South Australia some 480,000 adults of working age have prose literacy of level 1 or 2 when level 3 is the required functional level to read books, newspapers and magazines – the LLNP initiative is important in raising the basic skill level of the workforce. LLNP and the WELL program are key components of the Commonwealth’s building foundation skills initiative.

The title of the paper was: “The Importance of LLN Skills from an Economic, Social, Labour Market, Government and Citizenship perspective, including Links with Industry and Employment”. A copy of the paper and associated slides are available for download from the Centre’s website…”

“Earlier this week Australian Senator Kim Carr (Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) announced the removal of the somewhat controversial ERA rankings for scientific journals.

Early last year I posted about the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) journal rankings for ecology and conservation journals. To remind you, the ERA has ranked > 20,000 unique peer-reviewed journals, with each given a single quality rating – and they are careful to say that ‘A journal’s quality rating represents the overall quality of the journal. This is defined in terms of how it compares with other journals and should not be confused with its relevance or importance to a particular discipline’…”

“How did the universe begin? The universe began 13.75 billion years ago in a massive explosion called the “Big Bang”. Presently, our best efforts using microwave radiation background observations tell us what the universe was like approximately 379,000 years after the Big Bang.

To observe even closer to the beginning requires using a type of radiation called gravitational waves (GWs).  The existence of GWs was predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1916.

To find out more about this, visit the latest ‘Can you Believe it?’ article in the Advertiser by Matthew Heintze and David Ottaway from the University of Adelaide…”